as long as one and one is two
by katanafleet
Summary: He stepped away from her mom with tears on his face and love in his eyes and the request that her mom tell her every day how much he loves her. Every single day, a reminder. That nothing short of the universe's call could take Oliver Queen away from her and her family. [mia-centric]


a/n: canon through the end of 7x22. does not include anything about crisis or s8 because right now i just don't accept it. #denial. anyway mia and olicity are everything to me and i just want tiny little mia sparring with nyssa and her parents smiling at her from the porch. anyway.

* * *

Mia grew up knowing three things about her father.

She'd always known a lot of things about her father – he was a better cook than her mom is, he was really tall and strong, he's not around, he was one of the few people to beat Nyssa at hand-to-hand combat, and he met her mom by lying about a laptop.

But those aren't the fundamental things about her father, the things she remembers every day of her life.

* * *

His name was Oliver Queen.

But that wasn't not a hard one to figure out.

For one thing, Nyssa never says "your mother" or "your daddy" or any combination of that, always saying "Felicity" or "sister-wife" for her mom and "Oliver" for her dad. "Oliver did not master that move until he was thirty-three, well done," or something like that.

Her mom usually says "your dad" but sometimes starts with "Oliver would—" before catching herself with the worst sort of break in her voice that always makes Mia want to hug her, but her mom gets this look in her eye that means _please don't touch me, I'm going to fall apart_, and so she doesn't. But soon she grabs ahold of herself and finishes the story. "Your dad did that once, Aunt Thea mentioned. Your grandmother grounded him for a week. But I'm nicer than Moira, and you're only grounded for three days."

Three days was a _lot _when "grounded" meant "no playing outside."

Mia's last name was Smoak, just like her mom, even though in all the books and TV shows the wife changed her last name to match her husband's. Mia asked about it one time, the one time they visited Star City. They went to the Big Belly Burger; her mom got a nostalgic but not quite sad look when the waiter brought the burger, which was literally the best thing she'd ever eaten. They saw the old Queen mansion; her mom grinned when Mia grabbed her hand so they could run through the house as fast as they could. They saw her dad's gravestone; it said _Oliver Queen_.

"Why isn't our last name like Dad's?" Mia asked. "Mia Queen sounds good, and Felicity Queen is even better than Felicity Smoak."

Mom was in a really good mood, the kind where Mia could ask as many questions about Dad as she wanted, and she'd almost always get answers. "I never changed my name after we got married, mostly because we did it so fast and then Ricardo Diaz and all that. But I was also working on Smoak Technologies, and it made more sense to stay a Smoak." She had glanced at Mia and pulled her into a sideways hug. "But we're Queens, really. Just safer to keep Smoak for now."

She also knows her father's name is Oliver Queen because she found her birth certificate when she was three and sounded out the name and learned it there. That was how her mom learned to make sure things were locked and also that she could read.

* * *

Mia also knows that her father was the Green Arrow.

Nyssa's the main reason behind that. Nyssa's the one who tells her about most of her father's journeys –the bare details of Lian Yu and the Hood, a bit about Hong Kong and Russia, and how the Hood came to Starling City. Nyssa's the one who tells her of the exploits of the Hood and the Arrow and the Green Arrow, all the same man, relating stories in between punches and training.

Her mom is the one who tells her about Overwatch, sitting her down on the couch when she's seven and letting everything go in a convoluted mess that she untangled quickly. She was the one who kept the Green Arrow alive. She developed the technology that kept Team Arrow safe. She may have fallen in love with Oliver over a red pen, but the time in the bunker was what brought them together.

The more and more Nyssa and her mom explain her father, the more she understands her own training. None of the other kids in her neighborhood get training like hers; most of them learn how to shoot, and a few take karate, but none of them learn from the woman she eventually realizes is the last Ra's al Ghul.

Oliver Queen fought things she couldn't possibly imagine, did things that she knows she doesn't want to hear about. For that, she sometimes wonders what kind of man he was. But Nyssa relates every story with respect in her voice, and respect means everything to her. Once her mom finished the epic babble, she told Mia how many people her father saved, how many lives they saved on Team Arrow.

When she's little, Mia wants to be exactly like him, flying through the city on a wire, shooting arrows through the knees of bad guys, and saving as many people as she can.

When she grows up, she reads more about the vigilantes, and she doesn't know if he was a hero after all.

* * *

The thing that she knows most about her father is that he loves her.

As she tucks her into bed every night, her mom whispers it to her. When she's too little to know what that really means, she takes it as another comfort, just words that mean someone else aside from Mommy loves her, which is wonderful. Sometimes she repeats it back in her sleepy state, and one of those times her mom stared at her until she fell asleep, and Mia thought she heard her crying.

Her mom says it every day. Most of the time it's at night, when she's making sure Mia's actually gone to bed, but sometimes she says it randomly during the day. When Mia's mastered some new move or managed to shoot something smaller from further away, she just mentions it. "Your dad really loves you, Mia," she says. Or one time, her mom pretends she wasn't just crying on the couch when Mia gets back from a friend's house, and she murmurs it as Mia steps into her room to sleep.

But most of the time it's at night, when Mia's mostly asleep, and it's the kind of phrase that just sinks into her subconscious and never leaves. Even when she's run away from home and she's fighting people in the ring, her mom's words bounce around in her head and she wonders if it's really true, after all the ways she's hurt her mom.

When she learns about the past tense versus the present tense, she realizes that her mom never says "Your dad loved you so much, Mia." It's always "Your dad loves you, Mia." Present tense. Like he still loves her. Every day, she says it, "Your dad loves you so much, Mia." Even though he's dead.

Some nights Mia can't sleep, whether dreams of green hoods and bows are keeping her awake, or she refused the pain medication that her mom offered because Nyssa said no to it and the bruises are actually way more ouchy than she thought. Those nights she wanders through the house, looking for her mom. Most of the time she's awake too, on her computer in bed. She always closes the computer immediately and smiles, holds out her hands for Mia, Mia takes a running leap and crashes into her mother's arms no matter how bad her arms ache, and they cuddle and whisper about training or boys or whatever until they're both asleep.

But some nights she finds her mom outside. Felicity's always sitting in one of the chairs on the porch, curled up tightly, and staring at the stars. Mia joins her on the chair without a word, stares up at the stars with her. Sometimes they talk, looking for constellations or counting as many as they can. But most of the time her mom just pulls her into her arms as tightly as possible, and Mia rests her head on her mother's chest. Those nights, Mia pretends to not feel the tears that drop into her hair, and she always wakes up in her bed in the morning, and they always have chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.

But Mia knows that her mother's watching. Waiting. Wondering. Looking up into the stars for someone who's missing.

* * *

On the day Felicity Smoak leaves to join Oliver Queen, Mia finally understands. The Green Arrow sacrificed himself for the entire universe, to be the hero to save the multiverse. He did this at the cost of his family, leaving her and William and her mom forever.

But as her mom leaves to join the man she's longed to see for twenty years, a sort of peace in her eyes that's never been there before, Mia finally realizes how much she is loved. Her father hasn't been there, not since she was a tiny baby, but he couldn't help that. But what he left behind for her is everything. He left this earth at a price that she now cannot fathom paying, and he stepped away from her mom with tears on his face and love in his eyes and the request that her mom tell her every day how much he loves her.

Every day, a reminder. That nothing short of the universe's need could take Oliver Queen away from her and her family.

Oliver Queen – the Green Arrow who maybe couldn't save Star City, but who definitely saved the universe – her father, loves her. She doesn't know if she'll ever meet him again, but her mother's words are, as they have always been, enough.


End file.
